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Step Up Your Students’ Motivation Using Personalized Feedback

By Brian Chervitz
September 1, 2022

It can be difficult knowing how to increase student motivation in your online course. But online learning has a ton of ways to raise engagement and students’ motivation! This article focuses on the ways that providing kinds of personalized feedback can ensure your students are getting the resources and comments that best address their needs.

How to Use This Article

Use the following article in the way best suited for your needs:

  • Read Step 1 if you want the most important information and a simple example. This is for faculty who just want the abstract or are looking for an easy way to improve their instruction.
  • Also read Step 2 if you want to implement more advanced personalized feedback. This is for faculty who want to improve their quality of feedback and want more than the basics.
  • Continue to Step 3 if you want to learn more about using personalized feedback throughout your course, beyond just assignments. This is for faculty who are open to changing different parts of their course. Your instructional designer can help you incorporate personalized feedback into your course!

Step 1: Introduction to Personalized Feedback

Personalized feedback is not new. Grades and comments from instructors are foundational in any course. But effective feedback should be more personalized than a letter grade or a simple “Nice job!” or “Try again!” Providing adaptive and personalized feedback can help students perform better in the course, become more self-regulated learners, and stay motivated to complete the coursework (Maier & Klotz, 2022). Plus, students prefer personalized feedback over general comments (Cramp, 2011), and it motivates them to put more effort into a course.

Teaching a large survey course, an asynchronous online course, or both limits how realistic it is to provide personalized feedback to all learners on all learning tasks (Planar & Moya, 2016). Still, feedback is crucial for helping students learn, improve their capabilities, and become effective practitioners in their fields. Furthermore, offering timely feedback can be a challenge too, but it is critical for the learning process that feedback comes just in time for students to practice and improve their skills.

The Best Feedback Is Formative

Feedback is most effective when it comes during the learning process rather than at the end (this is the difference between formative and summative assessments). Giving timely and constructive feedback helps learners improve their knowledge and skills while practicing them before they are assessed for a summative grade. Consider having students submit drafts of their work so you can reinforce strong skills or correct misconceptions early. Another advantage of formative feedback is that there is no grade attached. Detailed feedback tends to be skipped when a summative grade is provided as well (Underwood, 2008).

One important characteristic of strong formative feedback is its actionability. Students should be able to take feedback and immediately know how to use it to improve their work. Reference the criteria for success for the assignment or the overall learning goals of the course when giving specific, actionable feedback as well.

Finally, provide a method for students to engage with the feedback. Develop a way for students to ask follow-up questions based on the comments and suggestions for improvement. Students’ reactions can also inform the instructor on the best ways to provide feedback, especially critical or constructive comments, moving forward. Try offering to meet to discuss the feedback during office hours that week, or even include a link for students to schedule an appointment with you directly in the feedback you provide.

An Example of Personalized Feedback

The most common form of personalized feedback in Canvas is probably the SpeedGrader comment. While using SpeedGrader, instructors have access to a comment box where they can provide praise for excellent work and suggestions for revisions or edits to improve their work. There, instructors can provide summaries of their feedback, explanations of their overall grades, or links to resources. The image below shows an example of a comment on a draft of a research paper. The comment helps the student identify their strengths and their weaknesses in a succinct manner. Ideally, the comment is paired with more in-depth comments within the paper itself.

A screenshot of a comment in which the faculty praises and offers specific constructive feedback.
Image 1: Personalized feedback provided as a SpeedGrader Comment.

Step 2: More Advanced Personalized Feedback

Personalizing suggestions for improvement and praise for student work sounds easy enough, but a serious gap between students’ expectations for feedback and what instructors give is unfortunately common. Carless (2006) identified a discrepancy between the students’ and instructors’ perceptions of how detailed feedback is. Instructors tend to overestimate how detailed and useful their comments are compared to how their students perceive those same comments. One cause of the discrepancy is that students often don’t understand the feedback because they can’t decipher how to use it to improve their work (Planar & Moya, 2016). The feedback coming too late to be useful for students’ learning is another problem (McConlogue, 2020).

In order to be effective, feedback should address multiple components of the learning task and process (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). When providing high-quality personalized feedback, consider the following five areas:

The task: What is the student doing or producing?

Different disciplines require different types of feedback. Is the student’s work authentic and realistic to the field of study? If proficiency in a particular skill (e.g., MS Excel calculations or pronouncing words such as in the image below) is important, the feedback should focus on correcting errors or misconceptions that could lead to errors. In the example below, the instructor could record themselves correcting a mispronunciation. On the other hand, more abstract thinking requires feedback to focus on concepts like organization and sequencing of thoughts and the connections between ideas.

A screenshot of a quiz question asking students to record themselves saying many French words.
Image 2: Faculty can record themselves demonstrating a skill in which a student is deficient, such a pronouncing a word in French.

In addition, the feedback should help students produce authentic artifacts of learning or act like a practitioner in the field. Instructors often do such when teaching citation styles, but feedback could also include information on how to effectively present information in a meeting, use appropriate scientific notation in a lab journal, or write a methods section in an ethnographic study.

The processes: Does the student think and work like a practitioner? How is the student evaluated?

When preparing a presentation at a business meeting, conducting a scientific experiment, or participating in an ethnographic study, are students doing so in the most effective, authentic way? Feedback throughout the processes of learning can help correct procedural errors or misconceptions in a student’s way of thinking.

Further, are students practicing the skills or using the knowledge they need for their assessments? Feedback can help identify the ways students can improve their work to better align with the criteria for success outlined in the course.

Self-regulation: How well does the student plan, set goals, seek help, manage time, etc.?

Feedback can be a powerful tool for helping students reflect on their self-regulation skills. If the quality of their work suffers as a result of poor time management or a lack of planning out their work, students can find feedback helpful in that regard as well. Suggest ways that students can utilize tools (ideally ones that would be accessible or even expected in the field) to perform more effectively. Improving self-regulation is a great benefit of personalized feedback (Wang & Lehman, 2021; Maier & Klotz, 2022). Student motivation and engagement also benefit from more robust self-regulation skills (Planar & Moya, 2016).

The student: How well does the instructor know the student?

Knowing the student (their goals, career aspirations, prior experiences, content knowledge, etc.) is helpful for personalizing feedback. The example pictured below shows instructions for an introductory discussion post in which students describe themselves, including their current careers or career goals. The instructor can then use that initial discussion board to reference this information about students when providing feedback relevant to their careers. It can be greatly motivating for students to revise and improve their work when they see the benefit to their goals or future, or when they feel the instructor is invested in their success.

A discussion board instructing students to provide their name, career goals, and hobbies.
Image 3: Faculty can use introductory discussion boards to curate important information from their students to use in their feedback when appropriate.

The relationship: How does the instructor work with the students?

The way instructors understand their role in the learning process affects the quality and the results of the feedback they give. Students are not motivated by feedback from instructors with an authoritative, controlling presence in the course (McConlogue, 2020). A relationship built on mentorship provides more motivating feedback, whether it’s praise or constructive criticism.

Personalized feedback also greatly benefits students from underrepresented or marginalized groups, especially during their first year in college (Espinoza & Genna, 2021). Having a positive relationship with faculty is a great motivator for students who cannot rely on family or friends to help them navigate the (often unspoken) norms of higher education. In these instances, personalized feedback from instructors is even more important.

Step 3: Personalized Feedback Beyond a SpeedGrader Comment

Thank you for investing in improving the quality of your feedback! By reading this section, you will be well positioned to provide high-quality personalized feedback, even beyond the comment box of SpeedGrader. There are many ways you can offer positive and constructive comments throughout your course.

Audio and Visual Feedback

The written word just doesn’t provide as much information as quickly as the spoken word. A video can convey tone, body language, and facial expressions while the instructor is speaking. In addition, feedback is best delivered in a similar cadence as the student’s work, so a video or audio clip could be more appropriate than a written comment, such as for a foreign language or art course. You might find that students respond more to video recordings of your comments than typed ones, and the video comments might be faster than typing them, anyway!

Canvas SpeedGrader allows you to upload audiovisual files into the grading interface. In 2022, Canvas also integrated the use of emoji into the comment box, which could be an easy way to visually share your tone without recording an audiovisual file.

Performance Recording Comments and Suggestions

Beyond recording a video of your comments, you might upload a video of you providing feedback on a student-uploaded video! For instance, if you were the instructor of a course on public speaking, you might record yourself with the student’s recorded speech, pausing their recording to offer praise and suggestions for improvement. A computer science instructor might have a student who is having trouble with some software record their screen when they encounter the problem, then the instructor can record a video on how to fix that problem!

Product Comments, Edits, Revisions, and Annotations

Within Canvas, instructors are not limited to the comment box within SpeedGrader. When students submit documents or files, instructors can download them and offer comments, edits, revisions, and annotations within that file (e.g., a Microsoft Word document or a Google Spreadsheet). Then, the instructor can re-upload the annotated and revised version of the student’s work to SpeedGrader for the student to review.

Email Check-Ins

Whether scheduled or only on an as-needed basis, reaching out to students through email is a great opportunity not only to develop a strong relationship with them but also to provide them with personalized feedback. Instructors can offer praise or suggestions for improvement based on recent student submissions or reach out with advice or their own experiences to connect with students and motivate them further.

Announcements

While not everyone loves this, many people appreciate a public shout-out for good work! Instructors can use the Announcements feature in Canvas to highlight great work, strong effort, and effective collaboration (or any other positive behavior the instructor wants to see in their course). A weekly announcement that instructors post to improve their presence in the class, connect materials to current events, and/or provide important time-sensitive information can also add a “Student Shout-Out” section. It might be worthwhile to reach out to the student beforehand to get their permission to give them the shout-out, as sometimes public praise can be demotivating for people.

“Message Students Who…”

Canvas makes it easy for instructors to reach out to students according to certain criteria, such as those who earned a specific grade, haven’t yet started an assignment, or had the assignment reassigned to them for revisions. Canvas will dynamically change the address list, but you have to supply the email subject line and body of the message. The message itself is where you can include feedback specific to each group of students. For example, in the image below, the instructor is messaging all the students who have not yet turned in their assignment, including reminders of their office hours and how students can contact them with questions or concerns they have in the email.

A screenshot of an email to students who haven't completed an assignment reminding them to turn it in.
Image 4: Instructors can target messages to specific students to provide more personalized feedback than a course-wide email.

Discussion Boards

Designing an effective discussion board assignment involves more work than just requiring a post and a comment (Berry, 2022). A strong discussion board assignment can facilitate the opportunity for students to provide personalized feedback to each other! If they know the criteria for success and appropriate norms for providing constructive criticism, a peer’s feedback can be a powerful tool for improvement.

Peer Review

Students themselves can provide important feedback to each other, not only in written comments but also through comparisons between work and norms established by the instructor. Students who review a peer’s work not only assess their peer’s submission against the instructor-provided rubric but also compare their peer’s work against their own. Further, by using the rubric as an instructor might, students are getting important perspectives on how rubrics can guide their work. This kind of feedback is especially useful for students, as they often don’t take the perspective of the instructor very often. Finally, the actual written comments students provide each other can be useful, as they can include perspectives or feedback the instructor might not.

Contribute to This Article

If you have a great example of any of the forms of personalized feedback, we would love to share it with our instructors to help make each course at UW Extended Campus as excellent as possible!

In addition, let us know if you use a way of sharing personalized feedback not mentioned in this article. It could be the next innovative spark to help someone else level up their students’ motivation.

Email Brian Chervitz at brian.chervitz@uwex.wisconsin.edu with your ideas.

References

Berry, L. (2022, July 15). A framework for increasing critical thinking, student engagement, and knowledge construction in online discussion. IDigest. https://ce.uwex.edu/a-framework-for-increasing-critical-thinking-student-engagement-and-knowledge-construction-in-online-discussions/

Carless, D. (2006). Differing perceptions in the feedback process. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 219–233. http://doi.org/10.1080/03075070600572132.

Cramp, A. (2011). Developing first-year engagement with written feedback. Active Learning in Higher Education, 12, 113–124.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.  http://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487.

Maier, U., & Klotz, C. (2022). Personalized feedback in digital learning environments: Classification framework and literature review. Computer and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2022.100080.

McConlogue, T. (2020). Assessment and feedback in higher education: A guide for teachers. UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv13xprqb.2.

Merry, S., & Orsmond, P. (2008). Students’ attitudes to and usage of academic feedback provided via audio files. Bioscience Education, 11.

Planar, D. & Moya, S. (2016). The effectiveness of instructor personalized and formative feedback provided by instructor in an online setting: Some unresolved issues. The Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 14(3), 196-203.

Underwood, J. S., & Tregidgo, A. P. (2008). Improving student writing through effective feedback: Best practices and recommendations. Journal of Teaching Writing, 22(2), 73-97.

A Framework for Increasing Critical Thinking, Student Engagement, and Knowledge Construction in Online Discussions

By Laurie Berry
July 15, 2022

Many faculty at UW Extended Campus use discussion strategies to engage their students and push them into higher levels of learning. From research, we know such strategies are necessary because most discussions do not naturally lead to higher levels of thinking (Darabi et al., 2011). Many instructors we have talked to have noticed this problem in their own courses—discussions can often feel like busywork or small talk. To achieve deeper discussions that show evidence of critical thinking and promote student engagement, research shows that your best bet is to provide the structure to make that happen (Brokensha & Greyling, 2015; Jarosewich et al., 2010). How do you create that structure? The Framework for Student Engagement and Critical Thinking can be used to provide the structure and support that will guide students into a deeper and more meaningful discussion and engage not only with the content but also with their peers. This five-component framework, developed out of research performed by Laurie Berry and Kristin Kowal (Berry & Kowal, 2022), can be used as a guide to help you add more dimension to your discussions.

High-Level View of Framework
The Framework for Student Engagement and Critical Thinking

Framework Component 1: Detailed Instructions and Clear Expectations

What is it?

Just like we can set up someone for success on a cross-country road trip with a good map, we can set up students for success with detailed instructions and clear expectations on how to approach the discussion. Research shows that when clear guidelines are in place, students can reach higher levels of learning (Gao et al., 2009). Now, this is not new. In online course design, there is a strong need for having clear expectations.

Example language

Below is what clear and detailed instructions might look like in a course:

Example of Instructions

The main idea of this framework component is to provide more guidance before the discussion starts, much like the detailed map for the road trip. The goal is to get students to show evidence that they are thinking more critically. Adding a purpose statement and criteria for success encourages students to push further and move beyond superficial discussion.

Framework Component 2: Share Thought Process

What is it?

The next framework component invites students to share their thought processes in their posts. This is comparable to the think-aloud process that you might already be using in your courses. Urging students to share their thought processes can uncover more detail and depth, which, in turn, can create more opportunities for meaningful discussion.

Example language

How does this component transfer to an online asynchronous discussion? The following is an example of language you can include in your instructions: “You can show evidence of critical thinking by sharing your thought process in doing the activity for all to see.” With this framework component, students are encouraged to share their thought processes from the start.

Framework Component 3: Prompt Discussion with Questions

What is it?

The third framework component asks students to pose questions to invite more discussion with their peers. Asking students to probe deeper and include questions in their posts can uncover areas that they may be struggling with or thinking about. By directing students to do this, you will help invite others to easily join in the discussion conversation and enable students to not only engage with the content but also with each other. You may even notice the discussion including elements of problem-solving and critical thinking, which are strong indicators of the students digging deeper. It can be rare to see students asking questions in their posts. However, when you ask students to include questions in their posts, they will answer the questions posed. Posting questions opens the door for others to easily join in the discussion.

Example language

You can invite students to ask questions or share their reflections by including language like the following in the instructions: “Ask questions of others in your post or reflect on something you may be struggling with or thinking about.”

Framework Component 4: Weave Evidence into Post

What is it?

You may have noticed this, but often when students are asked to use sources with their discussion, they merely post a link at the bottom of their post without referencing it in the discussion itself. This framework component focuses on weaving evidence or sources into the body of the discussion. Research has shown that most discussion prompts do not ask students to refer to materials to support their answers (Jarosewich et al., 2010). Directing students to weave their references into the discussion allows you and others to quickly identify where or how they learned the information rather than assuming the information is tied to something the student may have read.

Example language

Here is an example of language that can be added to the instructions: “Post an opinion or solution from your point of view and weave in evidence to support it. Remember to reference the resources used to provide the evidence.”

Framework Component 5: Reflection

What is it?

After a learning activity, students have developed so much new knowledge and connections, and you want to capture that gained information. This final framework component invites students to share what they have learned or experienced from the activity. It can be powerful to ask students to reflect on how they might have changed based on a learning experience. Adding a reflection component to your discussions can illuminate where construction of new knowledge has occurred. Including this component will take more time for students, but it is helpful for them to be able to synthesize not only their thoughts but also the thoughts and perspectives they gain from others.

Example language

In a discussion post, you can include a reflection component with questions like these to uncover any kind of transformation that has happened during the activity: “Did you learn anything new? Did you change your mind about anything? How have you deepened or expanded your own thinking?”

The process of digging deeper and constructing new knowledge commands a level of attention from students that signifies their engagement. Whenever students can interact with content in ways that allow them to construct new meaning, they form a deeper connection to the content itself and are able to interact more meaningfully with others (Brokensha & Greyling, 2015; Galikyan & Admiraal, 2019; Jarosewich et al., 2010; Wang & Chen, 2008).

Download a PDF handout of the Framework for Student Engagement and Critical Thinking to use as a resource.

References

Berry, L. A., & Kowal, K. B. (2022). Effect of role-play in online discussions on student engagement and critical thinking. Online Learning, 26(3), 4-21.

Brokensha, S., & Greyling, W. (2015). Dispelling e-myths and pre-empting disappointment: Exploring incongruities between instructors’ intentions and reality in asynchronous online discussions. South African Journal of Higher Education, 29(4), 50–76.

Darabi, A., Arrastia, M. C., Nelson, D. W., Cornille, T., & Liang, X. (2011). Cognitive presence in asynchronous online learning: A comparison of four discussion strategies. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27, 216–227.

Galikyan, I., & Admiraal, W. (2019). Students’ engagement in asynchronous online discussion: The relationship between cognitive presence, learner prominence, and academic performance. The Internet and Higher Education, 43, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2019.100692

Gao, F., Wang, C. X., & Sun, Y. (2009). A new model of productive online discussion and its implications for research and instruction. Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange, 21(1), 65–78. https://doi.org/10.18785/jetde.0201.05

Jarosewich, T., Vargo, L., Salzman, J., Lenhart, L., Krosnick, L., Vance, K., & Roskos, K. (2010). Say what? The quality of discussion board postings in online professional development. New Horizons in Education, 58(3), 118–132.

Wang, Y.-m., & Chen, V. D.-T. (2008). Essential elements in designing online discussions to promote cognitive presence – A practical experience. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 12(3-4), 157–177.

Collaborative Faculty Symposium Session Previews

By Abbie Amadio
April 19, 2022

Session: Community-Building Activities

⭐ Presenter: Eileen Horn

Why did you choose this topic?

I chose this topic because creating an equitable and engaging online learning environment is important but is also challenging. In this session, we will explore what your peers have done and have fun trying out some community-building activities that can be used in your courses. You will leave with a robust resource for finding and implementing inclusive community-building activities, and you will be inspired with new ways to make your course community engaging.

Session: Myths About Learning

⭐ Presenter: Nate Ewings

Why did you choose this topic?

Generally speaking, I love learning about commonly held beliefs that aren’t entirely true. It feels like I’m part of a secret club. So, naturally, I was drawn to a book that aims to dispel common learning myths.

How will this information benefit faculty?

Teaching and learning are both challenging. Faculty and students have limited time and resources to dedicate to the process, so research that can help shed light on what does and doesn’t work is invaluable, in my opinion.

Session: From 2D to 3D: A Framework for Increasing Student Engagement and Critical Thinking in Online Discussions

⭐ Presenters: Laurie Berry and Kristin Kowal

Why did you choose this topic?

  • Discussions are commonly used in online courses, but many of them lack depth.

Discussions are one of the most widely used techniques in online courses to support learning and encourage engagement, and yet they rarely go beyond information sharing to reach knowledge construction. In this session, we’ll share our new framework to help participants create livelier, deeper discussions.

  • Both students and faculty can benefit from new approaches to online discussions.

When discussions are overused or designed solely to mimic the face-to-face environment, students begin to tire of the read-write-post pattern, and their level of engagement begins to dwindle. Faculty can have a similar experience with discussion burnout. Our framework is another tool in the toolbox to help with this problem.

What will faculty walk away with?

  • Framework for Critical Thinking and Student Engagement in Online Discussions

We’ll be your tour guides through the framework, and along the way, you’ll see examples of the framework in action—transforming discussions from 2D to 3D before your very eyes! You will receive a copy of the framework to take with you.

  • Research highlights in the world of online discussions

The presenters are both instructional designers and researchers, so they will provide you with research highlights and their practical implications.

  • Ideas that can be quickly applied to your own course discussions

We’ve built in time to use the framework to come up with ideas to take your discussions from good to great, and time to discuss your experience with other attendees.

Session: Engaging the Disengaged Student: Motivating Change Within

⭐ Presenters: Liz Seitz and Jessica O’Neel

Why should faculty attend our session?

You will walk away with strategies you can use in the classroom immediately. The pandemic has made it so easy to become disengaged in an online course. To help meet the continued challenges facing remote learners and faculty, we will take an interactive approach to re-engaging students, including group discussions and scenarios. In addition to some helpful strategies that we will provide you, we will create resources based on your experiences, too, via a shared Google document that participants can access long after the session is over.

Why did you want to talk about this topic?

The psychology of what motivates people is so interesting. Finding the motivation to change behavior is difficult since change can be hard and scary. Our session will help give faculty clues to recognize where students are at in changing their engagement level in a course and help them understand how to support them as they re-engage in coursework.

Session: Scaffolding: Build Confidence, Build Competence

⭐ Presenters: Kyle Sky and Eric Peloza

Join us to learn energizing and practical tips for implementing scaffolding in your online courses. We will lead you through a series of activities designed to illustrate the ease and importance of this concept. Explore options for breaking down assessments, supporting students, providing quality feedback, and modifying your course to serve your scaffolded assessments.

Session: Level Up: Take Your Online Course to the Next Level!

⭐ Presenters: Amy Lane and Ryan Anderson

Join the over 200+ faculty who have decided to level up their online design and teaching practices by participating in our faculty development courses. Using your feedback, we’ve made major additions related to high-impact practices (HIPs) and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). We’ve also included a more extended array of examples. Together, we’ll actively engage in activities and assess your future needs.

In our interactive session, you’ll:

  • Identify three important additions to three new faculty development courses.
  • Articulate at least one change you want to make in an existing or new course.
  • Collaborate with peers to plan a course addition or revision related to HIPS or EDI.
  • Prioritize future topics of interest and needs related to your online teaching.

Meet the Instructional Design Team at UW Extended Campus
See the full schedule for the UW Extended Campus 2022 Faculty Symposium

Meet Flower Darby: 2022 Collaborative Faculty Symposium Keynote Speaker

By Abbie Amadio

Flower Darby speaks, writes, and presents on topics in online education across the world. She has over two decades of experience in higher education and is a seasoned educator in both online and in-person classrooms. A regular columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Darby writes about a variety of topics in online education, including how to be a better online teacher, using small teaching strategies online, and making the virtual classroom more inclusive. (You can learn more about her thoughts on all of these topics below.) Her keynote presentation at this year’s collaborative faculty symposium, “Rejuvenate, Revitalize, Reenergize: Rediscovering Our Fizz in Online Teaching,” is meant to motivate, inspire, and remind instructors that teaching online is a rewarding and transformative experience for both educators and students.

What makes a good online teacher?

In her advice guide ”How to Be a Better Online Teacher” for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Darby says the qualities that make great teachers in person make great ones online as well. It may seem like common sense, but Darby says that showing up to class, being yourself, and empathizing with your students go a long way in making better online teachers. In her guide, Darby also suggests practical ways to increase student engagement in the online classroom—from using scaffolding throughout a course to creating assignments with real-world application. According to Darby, these are just a few of the practices that engage students (and instructors) and make for a productive and pleasant classroom online.

From sticking to a schedule to authentically communicating with students, Darby provides key strategies for teaching online in her recorded seminar “How to Be a Better Online Teacher”

Access the The Chronicle of Higher Education via your subscription or home campus library to read Darby’s article “How to Be a Better Online Teacher”

What is small teaching?

In her book Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes with James M. Lang (who coined the term “small teaching”), Darby modified Lang’s small teaching strategies for the online classroom. Small teaching describes how research-based incremental changes to instruction can increase student understanding. For example, tasks like “retrieving,” “interleaving,” and “self-explaining” (to name a few) can be built into short (or “small”) activities that can improve student learning. According to Darby, these “small” strategies put less demand on instructors and are significantly beneficial for students. They can also be easily built into the online classroom. As she says, an instructor can make “one small change to [their] in-class activities, for example, an exercise that takes five minutes at the beginning or end of class and that requires no grading” and “this insignificant change can have an outsized impact on student learning when we base it on evidence-based principles such as retrieval practice or interleaving, both of which help students retain new information over time.”

Listen to Darby talk about small teaching online on the Trending in Education podcast

How can the virtual classroom be more inclusive?

Institutions around the world are figuring out ways to make their classrooms more inclusive—and that includes the online classroom as well. In “It’s Our Duty to Teach More Inclusively” in the Times Higher Education, Darby details the many ways online classrooms can be more inclusive—from ensuring that the viewpoints of historically underrepresented scholars are included in course materials to offering more choice to students in general (from completing assignments to participating in discussions). Another way Darby suggests instructors make their online classrooms more inclusive is by incorporating Universal Design for Learning. In her article, “6 Quick Ways to Be More Inclusive in a Virtual Classroom” for The Chronicle, she puts it this way: “With UDL, you can plan your course from the outset in ways that, while they lower barriers to learning for students with certain needs, benefit all students.”

Watch a recent seminar presented by Darby on principles and strategies that promote equity and inclusion in the online classroom

Access the The Chronicle of Higher Education via your subscription or home campus library to read Darby’s article “6 Quick Ways to Be More Inclusive in a Virtual Classroom”

Learn more about Flower Darby at flowerdarby.com/.

Flower Darby, “Rejuvenate, Revitalize, Reenergize: Rediscovering Our Fizz in Online Teaching”
Tuesday, May 24, 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
Event details: https://ce.uwex.edu/faculty-symposium/
Free; register at https://ce.uwex.edu/faculty-symposium#registration/

Faculty Spotlight: Tony Varghese and John Boyland

By Jessica O'Neel

The unofficial theme of this year’s faculty symposium seems to be “connection.” Not only will we have the chance to connect with one another, but several of the presentations revolve around fostering and growing connections within the online classroom. (If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the session previews!) As we prepare for the symposium, let’s see how some of our UWEX faculty are already embracing this community-minded approach in their online classes.

I interviewed Tony Varghese and John Boyland, two UWEX faculty members, and Instructional Designer Kristin Kowal about a unique discussion board strategy used in the Applied Computing (APC) program. Students contribute lines of code to solve a problem, then review and provide feedback on the work of their peers using the discussion board in Canvas. Though the strategy looks a little different in their respective classes, the goals are similar: metacognition, peer-to-peer connection, and replicating workplace skills.

Tony Varghese and John Boyland
Left to right: Tony Varghese (UWRF) and John Boyland (UWM)

Interview

Can you give a brief description of how this strategy works in your course?

[Tony] Students in APC 390 were given some starter code and asked to work in a group to come up with a program that would solve a slightly different problem. Each student has to make two posts each with at most one line of code and 100 words of explanation. Students got all the points if they made two posts. I gave them feedback if their posts did not have any lines of code or if their explanations were not substantial.

[John] I break up the class into groups of 6 to 10 students who all work with their own partially implemented class. I provide the initial code and test cases. The students have two tasks: to fix one error and to comment on someone else’s fix of an error. I grade using a rubric presented ahead of time. In particular, I don’t want them to make lots of changes (and so perhaps do too much–making it harder for the other students to do their part). I want them to explain what they did in their comment. Then, I want polite but content-rich comments on what the other student did.

Can you talk a little more about developing and including this strategy in your course? For example: What appealed to you about the idea? What were you hesitant about? 

[Tony] In software development today, you have to be able to work with others and communicate what your code is doing. You can make all kinds of changes to make your code more resilient, and you have to be able to explain how you did that in your code

[John] This assignment addresses multiple goals for me: I would like students to be more engaged with fellow students, I want them to learn to verbalize what they are doing while coding, I want them to learn how to work with multiple people on the same piece of code. I usually am reluctant to assign group work because the more diligent students will feel the need to do the work of those who don’t do their share. I think the exercise avoids the standard group work problem because each person is judged on their own contribution. The group as a whole rarely ever fixes all the problems, and that’s fine. The interaction is less artificial than some of my other exercises because it’s based on people working with code.

What learning benefits do you think this strategy provides to students?

[Tony] Ideally, students would see approaches to writing software that is very different from their own. And these approaches would be coming from peers and not an instructor. They can “see” how their peers think when developing software.

[John] I think this exercise really does give a flavor of working with others because students need to be very careful that they “pull” changes from others and quickly “push” their own changes, rather than sitting on them a long time, which means there is more work to “merge” them in. I also think it helps students learn to discuss their code with others in a slightly realistic situation. Incidentally, they also learn about the data structure we are using (a cyclic array) as the background of their discussions.

[Kristin] For programming courses, group problem-solving on the discussion board is a great strategy because students get to practice the skills needed to complete their individual work while getting feedback from each other. These discussions have a high impact because they are aligned with a project/skill students are already invested in, so we avoid the dangers of discussions becoming busywork.

“In most workplaces now, developers are expected to interact with their coworkers and customers. They have to be able to critique each other, be comfortable getting constructive criticism, and also know how to respond to constructive criticism.”

How is this strategy similar to what students might do someday in a future career?

[Tony] Yes, developing code is not the solitary process we had 30 or 40 years ago. In most workplaces now, developers are expected to interact with their coworkers and customers. They have to be able to critique each other, be comfortable getting constructive criticism, and also know how to respond to constructive criticism.

[John] This exercise is much closer to software development in a company because you’re always in a group, and you always need to explain your code to others and ask people about their code. It also uses “git,” which is the most common way open-source projects distribute code.

How do you feel this strategy helps build connection and community in your course? How does it help you connect with your students? How does it impact their connections to each other?

[Tony] Many students are stuck in their own ways of thinking. When students see how their peers think, it gets them thinking about more possibilities than they originally envisioned.

[John] This exercise requires that students read (code and comments) and analyze what other students are doing so that they can provide quality comments themselves. This, along with peer reviews (which happen three times during the course), gets the students engaged with each other.  They get to know each other’s coding and explanation styles. To increase engagement, I put students from the same home campus into the same group to share a codebase (and code reviews). I’m mainly out of the picture for these. I have other ways for students to be engaged with me (notably a very active Piazza discussion board).

[Kristin] This strategy approach reduces inequity; students with less computing background can get more help when they need it so they don’t have to wait on one instructor’s availability. It’s important to build multiple opportunities for practice and immediate feedback that doesn’t give an advantage to students with an ideal schedule.

What advice would you have for other faculty who may want to try a similar activity in their courses?

[Tony] Getting students to explain their thinking is always good. The main problem I ran into was trying to get students to explain why their code was better than something someone else posted. Instead of explanations, many students felt compelled to go against the “one line of code” rule and posted entire programs without any explanations. Students think that their code explains their thinking and it almost never does. If we can come up with a single “Text Line” for the one line of code and a “Text Area” for the explanation, we could enforce the “one line of code” rule.

Try it and see! You might have a better way to get students to interact positively.

[John] My advice: Make sure the group as a whole doesn’t need to complete a task. Instead, make sure that there’s enough work so that everyone can do a bit, and also make sure there’s an aspect where students need to analyze what others are doing and explain their own work. The exercise has limitations. Most students after they have their two required items stop paying attention. I’ve had students tell me they would have appreciated a longer engagement.

Conclusion

Generating community and connection in your online course helps enhance other course design best practices, such as authentic assessments. If you’re interested in trying a strategy like this in your course, reach out to your program’s instructional designer. See you at the symposium to learn more great strategies like this group problem-solving discussion!